PhilMeUp

R for Race mode doesn't work on my car very well.

Link? The Brembo 6/4 setup on my taxi - I paid $2500 for those calipers, brand new. At the time I knew bugger all about brakes. I sat in my taxi, with my laptop, for about half an hour trying to decide whether or not to buy them. Knowing what I know now... that would take about half a second. With around 500,000km on them, they don't look new anymore. Now - the clear lacquer has faded on all four calipers. And yes, just a slight lip on those DBA5000 discs... $650-700 for a new pair of outer rings is a bit excessive.

Yep, those Brembos sold quickly to a decisive cash buyer last night. For a bit less than $1,700. They're brand new. Never been fitted to a car. The seller was getting phone calls from all over the country. Negotiations were lengthy, but successful. The buyer wasn't going to leave empty-handed... Drugs are for people who can't handle a good Brembo deal.

Happened to me a few times. Car would be fine in daylight hours, but not run at night. These days I use D (ie for Daylight) all the time, instead of using N (for Night time) at night. Instruction guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9t3XBXmtgQ

Not until it gets a decent driveway.

Got any driveway photos?

My driveway can beat up your driveway.

Get one from this mob: http://stores.ebay.com.au/FITTINGS2U/ eg http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/FORD-FG-TURBO-OIL-LINE-FILTER-KIT-EARLS-UTE-XR6-FPV-F6-FALCON-G6-SPEEDFLOW-SEDAN-/170942058826?hash=item27ccf0d14a

What's a driveway?

That's what happens when people misplace the driveway.

Uniform or detective version?

Instead of aggressive high-speed pursuits, in the future police will sneak up on you with a quiet Toyota Hybrid.

Since that night I have started to develop a need to fit aftermarket gauges to the replacement green Tornado. Goody, another mini-project to start obsessing about (sarcasm). As the green Tornado has a different intercooler setup, it's likely that the turbo gauge for that car isn't working because there's no pressure sender. I should grab the gauges from the green Tornado and try them out in the blue one. Any idea if/where there's a fuse for that gauge?

The no-longer-new radiator, that I paid a bunch of money for at the start of the year. The bottom of it had also curved outward. I took the car for a test drive. I’m always getting the floor dirty, so the first stop was a car wash to vacuum the floor for the second time in a few days. Then I was off to the usual 24 hour supermarket to get something to eat. The interior these days is looking a whole lot better than when I first got the car. But, after all that, the turbo boost gauge still doesn’t work. Bugger. Not my most productive night. Time to call it a night and go home. 4:22am.

The sender unit bolts into a hole on the driver’s side of the intercooler. I removed the sender unit from the intercooler by unscrewing it with a 17mm spanner. The sender unit bolts into a brass collar, which then bolts into the intercooler. I used a 17mm spanner and 14mm spanner to separate them. As mentioned, the sender unit is made by VDO in Germany. Although the connections on both the sender unit and the wires were dirty, I couldn’t see any reason why they weren’t making a connection. However, I went inside with my cordless Dremel and cleaned the connection tabs on the sender unit with a small wire brush. On the nut end of the sender unit were the specifications. It’s pressure rated at 0-2 bar (ie 30psi). 32/25 on one of the other sides. And 1.06 on another side. I couldn’t see any of these details until I went over the sides with the Dremel and wire brush. A photo showing the connection tabs on the VDO sender unit. It took me ages, but I finally figured out the VDO part number, which is 360 043. VDO Specifications: VDO Part No: 360 043 30 PSI 10-180 Ohm Floating Ground Thread Size: 1/8-27 NPTF They’re not cheap, even in the US. Of course, I’m not even 100% sure that the fault is the sender unit. I haven’t even tracked down the obvious thing that I should have checked first - a fuse. The current price from JEGS in the US is $US47.33 - http://www.jegs.com/I/VDO/918/360-043/10002/-1?parentProductId=887192 I found an Australian place called The Guage Shop, but they don’t have a listing for it on their web site. I’ll email them. http://www.gauge-shop.com.aus The other side of the connection tabs. The sender unit screws into a larger diameter collar, and then the whole lot screws into a threaded hole on the side of the intercooler. I used some CRC non-flammable Contact Cleaner to clean out the wire connectors. This stuff is good, but expensive - around $25-30 for a can. Apart from cleaning the connection points, there wasn’t anything else that I could do to test or maintain the sender unit. Thus, it was time to start putting everything back together. I screwed the sender unit in quite tight to ensure that there would be no air leaks later on. I’ve got large hands, which makes it difficult to put back in the nuts that hold the intercooler in place. Getting the lower one on the driver’s side back in took a few attempts, and some patience. That one’s a job for Luke Skywalker. After various attempts and lots of self-control (ie frustration), I finally got the intercooler bolted back into place. I put the upper hose back on the intercooler and filled up the cooling system with coolant. Time to start the engine, and see if the dashboard turbo gauge was now working. Negative, no life in it. Bugger. I’m guessing that I’ll have to replace the sender unit, which means taking all this stuff apart again. Getting everything back into one piece. 3:14am. I had jacked up the front of the car at the start so that I could turn the front wheels from side to side to access the screws in the wheelarches that help to hold the front bumper on. However, the handle for the trolley jack kept getting in the way of getting the front bumper into place. I finally got the car back into one piece. Several hours of late night work, and I had achieved pretty much nothing. Replaced a radiator that I shouldn’t have damaged in the first place, and unsuccessfully tried to fix the turbo boost gauge. It was also obvious why I’ve always jacked the car up at the crossmember in front of the engine, instead of the larger and much more sturdy k-frame crossmember at the rear of the engine. Even getting the low-profile Arcan trolley jack far enough back required jamming it through, as the top of the trolley jack doesn’t clear the bottom of the bumper. And, once in place, the handle only moves up and down a centimetre or two at a time.

Thursday, 22nd October, 2015 Tonight it was time to finish replacing the radiator that I damaged a few weeks ago when the car slipped off the trolley jack. I had already replaced the easy stuff - the support beam underneath the radiator and the thermofan. In the back of the Tornado is the original engine from my taxi. The engine developed a major knocking noise shortly before reaching 500,000km. I’m pretty miffed about that - in the taxi world we go through transmissions and diffs, but never motors. The Barra motor almost never fails. Taxi workshops have rows of engines in the back of workshops. When wrecking the Falcon, the one part that doesn’t sell is the engine. I drive my taxi hard, but I also maintain it very well. It always gets regular oil changes - I used to use the very highly regarded Penrite Gas 10 but recently switched to Gulf Western Syn-X 3000. Both of these oils are semi-synthetic, but I’m now buying the Gulf Western oil in 20L drums at a much cheaper cost per litre than I was previously paying for Penrite in 5 litre bottles. Although I’ve learned how to do almost all the mechanical maintenance on my taxi over the last few years, I’m not an expert on engine internals. When a replacement engine was fitted, I had the workshop put the old one in the back of the Tornado so that I could pull it apart and conduct a post-mortem to determine the cause of death. It’s been there for a few months now - I really need to get out and find someone who can supervise me pulling it apart and help me find the cause of the knocking noise. Tip: If you’re ever carrying an engine in the back of the ute then be thorough with tying it down. Taking a hard corner and suddenly having about 250kg of engine slide from one side of the tray to the other is just a tad nerve-wracking. One particular attempt to see how fast I could take the Mill Point Road (ie curved) freeway entrance became most interesting. Bloody terrifying, actually. Let the games begin. There’s a story regarding the shovel in the background. Some time ago, I had a taxi booking very late at night at a train station in a dodgy area. Here in Perth, the taxi world has a lot of trouble with indigenous people (I’m trying to keep this polite as possible, but if you ever meet me in person then you’ll get a much more… honest… assessment). We have loads of fun with non-reflective-skin locals. So, these teenage individuals have gotten into my taxi. Knowing that it was highly unlikely that I was going to get paid for this, I managed to get about half the estimated fare from them, along with a promise that someone at the destination house would have the rest. Sure enough, once we arrived at the house, the kids vanished. Although not unexpected, I was still unimpressed. The house was the worst that I’ve ever seen. There was no front door. There were people asleep on the floor all over the place. Naturally, I made a nuisance of myself by shining a torch in everyone’s face in the hope that someone would pay the money just to get rid of me. There were cockroaches everywhere, and the outside of the house was like a rubbish tip. True squalor. Not the most constructive people around. I saw a shovel on the ground, figured that was worth the $10 still owing to me and put it in the back of my taxi. If anyone in Perth wants to buy a shovel for ten bucks then let me know. Or, maybe I should just keep the shovel and a bag of lime in the back of the ute. Might come in useful if someone ever crashes into it. From now on I’m going to jack up the car at the larger k-frame crossmember instead of the smaller one at the front of the engine. However, getting the trolley jack that car under the car wasn’t easy. When I fitted the new radiator back in January, I removed the intercooler to get access to the four bolts that hold the radiator in. This took me all night. I wanted to find a quicker and easier way of doing it this time, and realised that if I removed the support bracket underneath the radiator then the radiator would be able to move around a bit. This would give me better access to the four bolts. I removed the front bumper. I drained the coolant. I have a battery-powered Ryobi blower, so used that to blow air through the upper radiator hose. This actually worked, and a bunch more coolant was pushed out of the lower radiator hose, on the other side of the engine bay. Feeding a ratchet through to one of the radiator bolts. I didn’t want to drop any bolts and spend ages looking for them, so held a magnet over each bolt as it was removed. The radiator came out, in much, much less time than it took me back in January. I had a secondhand radiator lined up, so sprayed the core with CT18 and rinsed it with the garden hose on low pressure. Flushing water through the core. Once I finished rinsing out the core, I shook the radiator back and forth to shake the water out of the core. Then it was time to start on installing the replacement radiator. The turbo boost gauge on top of the dashboard has never worked for me. I had done some research, and learned that there’s a VDO pressure sender on the intercooler. To get to the sender required removing one of the intercooler pipes. Once the upper intercooler pipe was removed I could see the sender unit. I disconnected the two wires. A close-up of the VDO pressure sender. Although I could see the sender, I couldn’t actually reach it with my hands. I removed the headlight to give me some access. The battle scene, 11:56pm. The replacement radiator slotted into place easily enough. I wasn’t able to get access to the VDO pressure sender to remove it, so had to remove the intercooler.

That's a good option. What are the details for the place that does the refurb ones?

The Ford part number for a BF alternator is BAF210300AA. There will also be a sticker on it with the number A003TJ1691. You can get a secondhand one for around $100 easily enough, maybe less. Don’t forget that the Territory also uses the same alternator. Go through Gumtree and find one off a private wreck. Much, much cheaper than paying $300-400 for a new one. Edit: Ah, you’re in Perth. I’ve sent you a phone number for a guy that wrecks Falcons from home. He might have an alternator. I bought one from his a while ago for $60.

Driving a Honda is the last step before moving into a retirement home.

This. I don't need 4WD or high ground clearance. I need something where I can step up from the ground to the tray as I push a motorbike up the ramp and into the tray. It's a city car, driven on bitumen roads. I don't need off-road capability. And I don't need massively priced parts - 4WD tyres and other maintenance costs. How is it that we are the only country that makes use of a sedan-style ute?

It refers to the state of a car for the time in which it is transported from the factory to the car dealership.

Someone should have a look.

My path over the last 15 months: - July 2014: Bought a crash-damaged BA XR6 Turbo ute. Standard 240kW. - November 2014: Wanted more, so bought at auction a 2006 BF FPV Tornado. Standard 270kW. - May 2015: Got the bug, so at another auction bought a 2007 BFII FPV Tornado. Modified 353kW at the rear wheels. Holy sh*t, that thing gets up and parties when you put that right foot down. Huge amounts of time has been spent in the carport over the last 15 months. 2006 Tornado build thread: http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11429105 2007 Tornado build thread: http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11436333 It gets addictive. Heck, the original thought was, "I 'spose I could do with a cheap ute for an around-town runabout." So much for that idea. There was recently an FG F6 ute for sale in Perth. The guy spent $27,000 on the driveline only a few months ago. 504kW at the rear wheels, rebuilt transmission, diff, etc. The whole package. $45,000. These days I dream about buying that. Not in a position to spend $45 on a car, though. I'm probably gonna try and track it down in a couple of years...

Add another No vote for the rear window sticker. Likewise for the eagle head and XR6 parts of the side stickers. Those stickers make the car look like it's owned by a young guy who's over-excited to have his first car. I'm into keeping things as legal as possible. Window tinting: Keep it legal. No point spending a bunch of money if you've only got to remove it all if/when you get a work order. Although, borrowing/buying a spare set of windows and temporarily fitting them for an inspection is possible. Lowering suspension: Likewise, keep it legal. I'm also into keeping things practical. I hate smacking the front bumper into kerbs when parking. I hate having to go over big speed bumps at ultra-slow pace. Dammit, I'm old. Way too many grey hairs and common sense. Bugger. Another No on that one. It's obvious that you're really excited to have this car. With the black colour and black wheels, a simple all-black look is the way to keep it. Brembo calipers would look good behind those wheels.

Ah, it's a Perth car. I'm dumb. I thought it was a NSW or Victoria car (ie saw the comment about Brembos removed and assumed it was an eastern states cop car). NSW and Vic police pursuit cars have Brembo calipers from the factory. WA police get standard, boring brakes. I could never figure out why WA police don't at least get the PBR C5 calipers with 325mm discs. Or, get Brembo calipers and transfer them from car to car (ie rebuild the calipers each time).